Charles W. Quantrell : $b a true history of his guerrilla warfare on the Missouri and Kansas border during the Civil War of 1861 to 1865Trow, Harrison
History
Charles W. Quantrell : $b a true history of his guerrilla warfare on the Missouri and Kansas border during the Civil War of 1861 to 1865
Trow, Harrison
Guerrilla warfare; Kansas -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Missouri -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865; Quantrill, William Clarke, 1837-1865
The Guerrilla rode everywhere and waylaid roads, bridges, lines of
couriers and routes of travel. Six mail carriers disappeared in one
week between Independence and Kansas City.
In a month after Quantrell arrived in Texas, George Todd returned
to Jackson County, bringing with him Fletch Taylor, Boon Schull,
James Little, Andy Walker and James Reed. Todd and Younger again
came together by the bloodhound instinct which all men have who
hunt or are hunted. Todd had scarcely made himself known to the
Guerrilla in Jackson County before he had commenced to kill
militiamen. A foraging party from Independence were gathering corn
from a field belonging to Daniel White, a most worthy citizen of
the vicinity, when Todd and Younger broke in upon it, shot five
down in the field and put the rest to flight. Next day, November
30, 1862, Younger, having with him Josiah and Job McCockle and
Tom Talley, met four of Jennison’s regiment face to face in
the neighborhood of the county poor house. Younger, who had an
extraordinary voice, called out loud enough to be heard a mile,
“You are four, and we are four. Stand until we come up.” Instead
of standing, however, the Jayhawkers turned about and rode off as
rapidly as possible, followed by Younger and his men. All being
excellently mounted, the ride lasted fully three miles before
either party won or lost. At last the Guerrillas began to gain
and kept gaining. Three of the four Jayhawkers were finally shot
from their saddles and the fourth escaped by superior riding and
superior running.
Todd, retaining with him those brought up from Arkansas, kept
adding to them all who either from choice or necessity were forced
to take refuge in the brush. Never happy except when on the war
path, he suggested to Younger and Cunningham a ride into Kansas
City west of Little Santa Fe, always doubtful if not dangerous
ground. Thirty Guerrillas met sixty-two Jayhawkers. It was a
prairie fight, brief, bloody, and finished at a gallop. Todd’s
tactics, the old yell and the old rush, swept everything--a
revolver in each hand, the bridle reins in his teeth, the horse at
a full run, the individual rider firing right and left. This is the
way the Guerrillas charged. The sixty-two Jayhawkers fought better
than most of the militia had been in the habit of fighting, but
they could not stand up to the work at revolver range. When Todd
charged them furiously, which he did as soon as he came in sight of
them, they stood a volley at one hundred yards and returned it, but
not a closer grapple.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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